U.S. combat deaths drop in Iraq

McClatchy Newspapers

Published Tuesday, October 02, 2007

WASHINGTON -- U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest point in more than a year in September, figures show, a continuation of a four-month decline in combat casualties that has analysts debating why.

Sixty-four American service members died in Iraq in September, according to icasualties.org, which operates the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site. Of those, 43 died from hostile action, according to the site, which tracks the casualties of U.S. and other coalition countries.

The last time the U.S. death toll was that low was in July 2006, when 43 troops died, 38 of them in hostile action.

This year, deaths peaked in May, when 126 troops died, 120 of them in hostile action. Since then, the number of troops killed by hostile action has fallen each month, despite predictions from American commanders that they would rise once the U.S. troop buildup was completed and the U.S. began more aggressive action. That buildup was completed in June.

The decline parallels a drop in casualties caused by roadside bombs, the No. 1 cause of deaths for Americans in Iraq.

According to icasualties, only 27 American troops died from improvised explosive devices, or IEDS, in September, down from the year's peak of 88 in May. The last month when IED casualties were that low was February, when IEDs claimed 27 American lives; 81 U.S. troops died in Iraq that month.

Those statistics include EFPs, explosively formed penetrators, which can pierce armor. Top military commanders in Iraq have said those devices are coming from Iran.

The U.S. began increasing the number of troops in Iraq in February, adding five combat brigades in a so-called "surge" strategy that was completed in June. U.S. troops then began a series of offensives in Baghdad and in conflicted areas north and south of the capital that American commanders had said would likely result in higher U.S. casualties.

Instead of rising, however, casualties have declined, leaving analysts debating whether the surge had succeeded in defeating insurgents or whether armed groups had simply left to avoid combat with American troops.

Frederick Kagan, one of the developers of the surge strategy, said the decline was to be expected. He said U.S. troops now have secured troubled neighborhoods in Baghdad and are either holding them or handing them over to their Iraqi counterparts.

But Loren Thompson, an analyst with the conservative Lexington Institute think tank, said there was little doubt that the decision by Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to order his Mahdi Army militia not to fight the Americans was critical to the drop in U.S. casualties.

In all, 3,807 troops have died in Iraq as of Monday morning, according to icasualties 3,115 were killed by hostile fire.